ABT was founded to bring the classical repertoire to New York City. NYCB was founded as the creative outlet of George Balanchine. The repertoire of the two companies is very different, although increasingly, it overlaps.

Another major difference is that most NYCB dancers are trained at SAB, whereas there is no official ABT school (although there is studio company). This has an effect on stylistic uniformity. Also, ABT is very much a company of "stars". While there are many big names at NYCB, the company tries to focus more on the choreography than the dancers. For example, ABT releases casting information far in advance, and I admit it plays a large role when I decide which performance to see. NYCB on the other hand, only releases casting a few weeks in advance. It seems that they would rather the audience come to see a particular ballet rather than a star.

Many of the "stars" of ABT in years past were trained at SAB actually. Two who come to mind are Leslie Browne and Gelsey Kirkland. I believe Ethan Steifel also trained at SAB and danced at NYCB for a brief time, I think. So stylistically, there are "cross-overs". Also, at one time, David Richardson, who danced with NYC during the Balanchine era, was a ballet master at ABT.

Oh yes, there are deffinately stylistic cross-overs. Ethan Stiefel did dance with NYCB for a while, and Paloma Herrera attended SAB for a short time. Monique Meunier also moved from NYCB to ABT, while Joaquin de Luz did the reverse. NYCB has dancers trained from outside of SAB (for example, the Royal Danish Ballet School) but it seems that the majority come from SAB. At ABT, many of the dancers were trained in Russia, Spain, Ukraine, Argentina, Italy etc. It is interesting to note that 16/24 of the principals at NYCB are American, compared to 4/16 at ABT. I think in the past ABT has had an official school (during Baryshnikov's directorship and also once before that), but now they only have the summer intensives and studio company. Going back to the question of which company one prefers, I would have to suspend judgement. ABT and NYCB are both excellent companies, but they are so different, which makes them difficult to compare!

Hi! Another big difference is that ABT's repertory is focused on full-length story ballets, while NYCB usually performs several, shorter ballets each night.

Actually, 4 out of 20 (not counting the two guests) ABT principal dancers are American.

At NYCB, 6 out of the 22 principal dancers are foreign, though both Benjamin Millepied and Nilas Martins received a good chunk of their training at SAB. (Only Sylve, Marcovici,Tewsley and Hübbe were trained entirely at other schools - and Hübbe may well have been taught at some point or another by a past /present NYCB dancer while at the RDB School).

Out of the NYCB soloists and corps, I believe that only Ask laCour, Joaquin de Luz and Saskia Beskow did not spend any time at SAB, though laCour was taught by former NYCB dancers like Adam Luders and Colleen Neary at the RDB School.

Ethan Stiefel was at NYCB for many years - he was a principal dancer at NYCB before departing for ABT. Herman Cornejo was briefly at SAB, and Paloma Herrera was in the SAB Workshop one year. Monique Meunier and Anna Licecia both danced with NYCB, and Eric Otto was a NYCB apprentice. Other SAB Workshop alums in the company include Arron Scott, Alexandre Hammoudi, Tobin Eason, Natalia Boesch, Eric Underwood, Grant DeLong, Anne Milewski and Ethan Brown. A vast majority of the 03-04 Studio Company also spent some time at SAB including those mentioned above, Abigail Simon, Ana Sophia Scheller (now with NYCB), Lara Bossen and Melanie Hamrick.

ABT has started a small after-school training program, but it has yet to be seen whether this will sustain itself and/or grow. The company did indeed have a school early on and again while Baryshnikov was AD, but neither survived long-term.

The two companies are very different, but what a luxury to have them both in the same place. I recall a weekend where I was attending a conference of dance critics and was amused to watch them do what I assume is a not-unusual scurry from a matinee performance of one company across the plaza to an evening performance of the other.

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